{"id":519,"date":"2019-08-29T19:37:22","date_gmt":"2019-08-30T02:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.parrotworks.com\/walkforlostkids\/?p=519"},"modified":"2019-09-10T13:53:44","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T20:53:44","slug":"psychology-today-the-apa-and-parental-alienation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.parrotworks.com\/walkforlostkids\/psychology-today-the-apa-and-parental-alienation\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychology Today, the APA and Parental Alienation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Psychology Today openly <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/basics\/parental-alienation\" target=\"_blank\">defines<\/a> and discusses parental alienation (PA) &#8212; when a child refuses to have a relationship with a parent due to manipulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition, many <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/search\/site\/parental%20alienation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">articles by Susan Heitler, Ph.D. and Edward Kruk, Ph.D.<\/a> take the topic head on acknowledging:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>&#8220;Parental alienation is more common than is\noften assumed&#8221;<\/li><li>&#8220;scholarly consensus {is} that severe\nalienation is abusive&#8221;, and<\/li><li>&#8220;child welfare and divorce practitioners\nare often unaware of or minimize its extent&#8221;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The online articles tend to attract several comments in the\nvacuum of other reasonable, credible professional forums on the topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>APA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The APA has taken a very different stance on PA.&nbsp; Way back in 2008, they issued a <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.apa.org\/news\/press\/releases\/2008\/01\/pas-syndrome\" target=\"_blank\">brief statement<\/a> that there was not enough information on the subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since then, the APA has been inconsistent publishing <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.google.com\/site\/centralohiopa\/apa-statement-parental-alienation-is-child-abuse\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">papers that refer to PA as abuse<\/a> but without ever spearheading their official stance by clearly, publicly defining parental alienation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Family Courts &amp; Fatherlessness<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Troubling research concerning family courts is coming to\nlight.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2018\/01\/08\/most-dads-say-they-spend-too-little-time-with-their-children-about-a-quarter-live-apart-from-them\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">recent Pew Research<\/a>, six in ten dads report spending too little time with their kids.&nbsp; And one in five of that group reports the reason is because they don\u2019t live with them.&nbsp; That equates to one in eight fathers effectively blocked from their kids by their custody scenarios.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fatherless has been correlated to <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fatherhood.org\/father-absence-statistic\" target=\"_blank\">poverty, teen pregnancy, child abuse, substance abuse and incarceration<\/a>.&nbsp; Even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=sqaGkJ3xklY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">school shootings<\/a> are being tied to kids who grew up without fathers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a society we can\u2019t afford to wait for yet another study to make the short, cognitive leap between blocked parents, PA and the horrible outcomes for kids, parents and society in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Courts are hogtied lacking professional recommendations to begin a reasonable path of training credible court professionals who can identify PA.&nbsp; Only then can they protect children and parents alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The family courts are allowing PA \u2013 in part because they have no expertise in the matter.&nbsp; And as a result, abuse is occurring in the courts.  Horrible, destructive abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Psychology Today<br> <\/strong><br>Psychology Today has done an awesome job of sticking their necks out when the APA has obviously dropped the ball.&nbsp; I encourage Psychology Today to boldly take the next steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Create a small, national group of qualified psychologists to assist in educating the courts on PA&nbsp; (Steve Miller, Craig Childress and Amy Baker come to mind for starters)<\/li><li>Openly define your mission and call out the APA as unable or unwilling to take on the task (if the APA picks up the ball or assists, we all win)<\/li><li>Create a recommended strategy for courts for training staff for identifying and navigating parental alienation scenarios<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>APA \u2013 Call to Action<\/strong><br> <br>The APA\u2019s silent stance on PA is borderline criminal at this juncture (bad clinical reference intended).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Please take two minutes and <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.apa.org\/ethics\/contact-form\" target=\"_blank\">report an ethical issue<\/a> to the APA. &nbsp;Point out that people are being abused in the family court systems as a direct result of no credible PA definition.&nbsp; Cut and paste their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.apa.org\/ethics\/code\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">own ethics general principles<\/a> if necessary which include integrity, justice and respect for people\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There will be little justice in family courts until we can have reasonable open discussions about PA.  Not people creating their own definitions on the fly or running around calling it pseudoscience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>____<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>PASG Parental alienation database: <br><a href=\"https:\/\/mc.vanderbilt.edu\/pasg\/citation-manager\">https:\/\/mc.vanderbilt.edu\/pasg\/citation-manager<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/convention.apa.org\/agenda\/apa-film-festival\">APA Film festival<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Psychology Today openly defines and discusses parental alienation (PA) &#8212; when a child refuses to have a relationship with a parent due to manipulation. In addition, many articles by Susan Heitler, Ph.D. and Edward Kruk, Ph.D. take the topic head on acknowledging: &#8220;Parental alienation is more common than is often assumed&#8221; &#8220;scholarly consensus {is} that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.parrotworks.com\/walkforlostkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.parrotworks.com\/walkforlostkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.parrotworks.com\/walkforlostkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.parrotworks.com\/walkforlostkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.parrotworks.com\/walkforlostkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.parrotworks.com\/walkforlostkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":543,"href":"http:\/\/www.parrotworks.com\/walkforlostkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions\/543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.parrotworks.com\/walkforlostkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.parrotworks.com\/walkforlostkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.parrotworks.com\/walkforlostkids\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}